Jungle battlefield ‘lost’ for 68 years discovered

Trekkers find boots, helmets, human remains and medical supplies.

Shells are piled at a Second World War battlefield in a remote area of New Guinea.

By:Lesley Ciarula TaylorStaff Reporter, Published on Tue Jun 08 2010

A team of expert adventure hikers has found human remains, canteens, ammunition and boots from the site of an epic World War II battle between Australian and Japanese soldiers that has been lost for 68 years.

Led by former Australian Army Capt. Brian Freeman, the team announced its discovery Tuesday, on the very day they set off on a return journey deep in the jungles of Papua New Guinea along the Kokoda Trail, a 100-kilometre trek through mountains and rainforest.

“On our inaugural trek, we were hoping to find the remnants of a makeshift Japanese hospital and, potentially, relics of guns and ammunition. I never anticipated that we would find war dead,” Freeman said in a statement released through the Lost Battlefield Trust.

Freeman, who has hiked the trail 35 times and runs a trekking company in Brisbane, reached the site for the first time on April 23.

“It was as if time has stood still. We found ammunition running out in a line from the rifle that was dropped as the Japanese advanced to the rear,” Freeman said.

Retired Australian Gen. Peter Cosgrove, who accompanied Freeman and Moffatt to the site on May 29, said, “It was the discovery of a Japanese soldier sitting up against a tree, only centimetres from the surface, still in his helmet with his boots nearby, that began to tell the human story.”

Jungle reclaimed the 600-square-metre Eora Creek battle ground after the campaign in October, 1942. Villagers avoided it because of a belief that the spirits of the dead were still there, Freeman said.

The site sits further from the Eora Creek village than previously thought, he said.

Alola villagers led him to the site, Freeman said, because of a long working relationship. The village chief and now his son have been Freeman’s trekking guides; in exchange, he has built their elementary school and visitors’ huts and taken sick villagers to Port Moresby for medical treatment.

Freeman and the Trust want the site preserved intact, with sole guiding rights retained by the villagers. No trekkers will be allowed to the site until all bodies are repatriated, Freeman said.

From 80 to 100 Australians and 69 Japanese died in four days of fighting at the site, whichAustralian Geographicdescribes as a pivotal battle in the months-long Kokoda Track campaign for the Pacific Island north of Australia. Dozens of soldiers are still classed as missing.